Bloodroot -- Sanguinaria canadensis
Every spring in hardwood forests of Minnesota, the ground receives a relatively quick shot of sunlight. Over the long winter months, skeletal deciduous trees stand by as falling snow piles up on the forest floor creating a blanket under which plants and animals escape the cold. Through March and April, rising temperatures and a strengthening sun work in tandem to undo the blanket of snow and as the resulting meltwater infiltrates the ground or flows away downstream, bare ground is exposed to the sun. In response, the buds of dormant herbaceous plants nestled in just below the leaf litter, come to life. But they must work quickly because even as they are emerging from the ground, the leaf buds on the trees above are coming to life as well. In just a few weeks, the forest floor will be shaded again. Among the early bloomers found growing in these woods, bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is perhaps my favorite.
The small herbaceous plants that take advantage of the narrow window of sunlight between snow and shade are commonly referred to as spring ephemerals, a somewhat vague and undefined term. In the truest sense, spring ephemerals are plants that complete their above ground tasks in as little as a few weeks. They emerge, grow, flower and set seed, all while photosynthesizing as much as possible before withering away as the tree canopy closes and the summer heat and drought take hold. Almost all such plants are perennial and have enlarged root systems, such as rhizomes and bulbs. These roots systems are the evolutionary adaptation that makes spring ephemerality possible. Because they are only above ground for a short time each year, they must have a place to storage a large cache of carbohydrates. Just as a bear fattens up before hibernating, these plants survive by pumping their roots full of food. And though they go missing for 10 months or more each year and a person walking in the woods might have no idea of their existence, they are very much alive just below ground. But certain plants commonly called ephemeral are not actually very ephemeral at all. To term bloodroot and certain others “ephemeral” is flower-centric and ignores the leaves that persist well into the summer and even sometimes to fall.
The bloodroot flower itself is truly ephemeral. Of the spring flowers, theirs are among the shortest lived. Emerging from the ground cloaked by a nascent leaf, the yet closed solitary white flower eventually pushes above the slowly unfurling leaf where the white petals open quickly over the course of the day. As they open, bright yellow stamen clustered at the center are exposed. At first parabolic, much like many of the small flowers of the Arctic, the sunlight heats the inflorescence and the petals continue to open until, at their fullest extent, they are actually slightly recurved and reach about two inches across. These petals, usually eight in total although sometime more, are streaked with thin dark veins. The iridescent white of the petals, with their dark streaks and bright yellow stamen, make bloodroot flowers undeniably beautiful. They are a tidy looking flower contrasting the leaf litter from which they sprout. But it all happens quickly and after just a day or two, sometime three or four, the delicate petals drop to the ground having accomplished their mission of attracting pollinators.
The solitary leaf is often still more or less clasped around the scape as the petals fall to the ground. Unfurling as it grows, the oddly shaped leaf is equally as lovely as the flower that precedes it. Deeply lobed and palmate, it really is unique, almost fig-like in shape, with conspicuous and intricate venation and a pleasing glaucous green color that glows when the sunlight catches it. The still small leaf appears fleshy, like it would make a good addition to a salad which is alarming considering its toxicity. The mature leaf can reach eight inches across and as bloodroot grows from spreading rhizomes, a happy colony can produce a lot of leaves which cover the ground. In harsh summers, whether exceptionally dry or hot, bloodroot leaves will wither to limited water loss. But given cooler and wetter conditions, they can remain through late summer and even early fall.
It is their rhizomes that give bloodroot both its common and botanic name. I have only handled these rhizomes a few times, but on each occasion I made sure to snap off a segment to see the deep blood red-orange color within caused by a colorful sap which is the plant’s most unusual characteristic. It really is a wonderful color and with a stained fingertip, it was clear to me why this plant is a good source of red dye. Having later learned that the sap contains sanguinarine, a toxin which kills animal cells, I feel fortunate that I did not scar my finger. We all ride our luck. This sap flows through all parts of the plant, the veins and leaf margins taking on a hint of red.
Like other rhizomatous plant, bloodroot benefits from asexual reproduction. A single wandering rhizome, over a period of years will transform into a tangle of many, each sprouting flowers and leaves. This asexual reproduction is valuable for bolstering a local population, creating more opportunity for pollination and photosynthesizing, but the genetic diversity that allows for robust and resilient populations cannot establish in this way because all vegetative offsets are exact clones of one another. The mixing of genes is only possible through pollination and aided by seed dispersal. Bloodroot, like all life, must ensure that it accomplishes this. Bloodroot pollination is straightforward, but it has an interesting way of ensure that its seeds move around.
A trait common among woodland spring ephemerals is to have a fat-rich appendage, called an elaiosome, attached to their seeds. Trillium and corydalis join bloodroot and other spring bloomers in this peculiarity that shows a strong co-evolutionary link to their primary seed dispersers, ants. Anyone who has ever seen an ant struggling with a large crumb knows that they tend to bring food back to their nest. So it is with bloodroot seeds. Instead of eating the fatty elaiosome where they find it only to leave the seed at the plant, the ants bring the entire seed back to their nest where the elaiosome is consumed and fed to larva. The seeds, useless to them now, are left in piles among the nutrient rich, well aerated soil of the ant nest. Often at the ideal depth for germination and also safely buried away from potential seed predation, bloodroot could not ask for a better start to life. As seen so often in nature, this is a great symbiotic relationship. The woods are full of ants with the strength and endurance to carry bloodroot seed, and their strength and endurance is fueled in part by the seeds they carry. This ecological interaction between ants and plants is actually fairly common across the world and has evolved independently a number of times. And it makes sense given the number of ants in the world and the relative straightforwardness of sacrificing a small part of an already nutrient-rich seed. Still it’s a complex association that been given a complex name: myrmecochory.
Having four well-defined seasons is perfection. To sense the passage of time and to constantly have something to look forward to as well as something to endure, that makes life more manageable and also more interesting. Winter is good and it should end. So it does. Spring is good and it should end. So it does, as with summer and fall. Each season is different, alone each is good but altogether they are great. Of them, winter is the most intense. The dead of winter in Minnesota can feel eternal. On a frozen morning when everything seems perfectly static, how could this land ever be anything other than the crunch of snow and groan of ice? Impossible that is should change from winter to spring, then to summer and fall even though you know this change is true, that it had been true and will be true.
Woodland spring ephemerals, delicate little nothings dotting the ground, headline the most remarkable seasonal change in the north woods. And with these fragile flowers – snow trillium, skunk cabbage, bloodroot – a sign that winter has given way, the odd late snowstorm be damned. The smell of soil, movement of water, little jewels of color popping out of the brown ground, spring in Minnesota. And out there in midst of all that rejuvenation, it’s fitting that there should be a plant called bloodroot. Life quickening in thawed soil, the blood of the forest flowing again. It’s so earthy and good and before you know it, it’s gone.